Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth. A Magical Kingdom where you can wish upon a star and your dreams will come true. A land where heroes and heroines live. Fairy tales and magic; happily ever after.
Disneyland attracts more than 17 million people each year, and their sister park, Disneyland Paris, the most visited tourist site in Europe, reported 8.4 million guests in 2016!
In 2010, approximately 14,500 people worked at Disneyland Paris, and that is where our story begins.
“What we sell is something wonderful. We sell smiles. We sell the happiness of children. We all love our jobs, or what our jobs represent,” said Hervé Saumade, 37, a maintenance man and union activist at the park. “But in the last few years, there has been a new management approach, which has, in many cases, made our working lives intolerable.”
February and March, 2010, 2 employees committed suicide. The first, an unnamed man, threw himself in front of a train. A trade union, Force Ouvrière, insisted he did it because of the “humiliating” treatment at work.
The second, a far more telling account is known only as Franck L., a 37 year old father of four, was a restaurant manager at Disneyland. He was out of work for a long period of time, due to an illness. On the day he was supposed to return to work, he killed himself in his home. His father-in-law reported a suicide note scratched into the wall of his home. It read: “Je ne veux pas retourner chez Mickey” (I don’t want to work for Mickey any more).
Franck’s father-in-law, Pierre-Louis neut, said Franck was depressed by the changes happening within Disneyland Paris. Numerous staff cuts and even a policy change that had the restaurants moving away from fresh made food to frozen.
The local trade unions all insisted that something was wrong with Disney. A young, mostly french management team had taken over and dramatically reduced the number of jobs in the restaurants and hotels, while the number of visitors was only increasing.
Employees were expected to work longer hours and 6-day work weeks. Industrial accidents rose to approximately 1,500 per year, or 1 for every 10 employees!
Is this truly where dreams come true?
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